I was ambling along, when a new cosmetic brand flashed in front of my eyes. Elysambre!
This French brand with a very pretty name focuses on organic, green and ethical make up, all (or nearly all) refillable. Refillable eyeshadow, blush, foundation palettes – even the mascara and lip glosses are refillable. They come in sturdy copper containers in the first instance that you then refill to prevent waste. The brand is free of Parabens, PEG, phenoxyethanol and mineral oils.
The brand was launched in 2006, so it’s still a baby. I tried out some of the goodies, which can be bought at health food stores or at various places online (listed at the end of this post).
Anyway, on with the make up. At first I got a liquid eyeliner, foundation and two eyeshadows.
These are matte! Matte!
Foundation:
This foundation is in shade 01 and too light for me. The texture of it is creamy and there were no allergies at least, but I couldn’t review it very well as I didn’t want to leave on a foundation 4 shades too light!
Brown Liquid Eyeliner:
On one hand this eyeliner is good, because it is long lasting, and it dries quickly. The colour is strong and opaque too. On the bad side, the applicator is quite poor – it’s a brush applicator but the brush is stuff. So if you want to pull the brush across the lash line which is the natural thing to want to do you will become unstuck because the applicator is so stiff you can only use the tip of it. So basically, its hard to draw a smooth line in one go.
Later on, I bought a matte yellow shadow and a copper storage case (Large) for bout £6.
The case is VERY sturdy and heavy:
Ways to put things in the palette. The idea is you can put anything, eyeshadow, concealer, powder, blusher, foundation into the palettes, depending on the size.
The inside of the palette has a number of very strong magnets:
Holds things in securely:
These are the 4 shades I ended up with, yellow, orange, teal and hot pink. Now, elysambre do do some shimmery shades but I haven’t seen them in person although they look nice.
Matte eyeshadows are difficult at the best of times, but these Elysambre eyeshadows are good mattes!
Bad Matte: Chalky, Dry, Crumbly, Unpigmented, Dull, Flat
Good Matte: Bright, Pigmented, Smooth, Creamy
I was surprised by how good these were to work with – they are extremely soft and extremely pigmented and buttery soft.
The shadow pans are quite large too.
My summery, fruit bowl eyes:
In the UK you can buy Elysambre from Love Lula and I had a good shopping experience with Ecorium. However swatches are limited – it could be worth visiting any local health food shops that may stock this range.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s pretty dramatic!
The makeup’s packaging looks really pretty.
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Wow, very interesting !
And look at those packagings!!!
this make a wonderfull make-up line for sure
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Pretty packaging – will take a look at the website as I haven’t seen the range in any of the health shops I frequent. Speaking of matte eyeshadows I went to the Illamasqua counter in Selfridges seeing as I’m back home in London and I was a little disappointed really! The MUA was exceptionally lovely and seemed really sincere in recommendations unlike the guy that did my friends face who went a little over the top with a dirty burnt orange eye shadow and then tried to flog it to me. She didn’t exactly sell it to me just used created a nice base with cream blush and a bit of smudgy kolh. So I came out with less makeup with wht I went in with and had to top up at another counter.. I bought the concealer which I quite like though have to warm up quite a lot. Shame that she didn’t use any colour and that her colleague then accosted me, maybe she sensed that I was a poor trampy student that didn’t have cash to part with. x
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Hi Elizabeth
Oh no you had a bad experience at Illamasqua? Tis a shame – what did you think of the counter/products? I’ve not seen the one in London yet.
You know…I was thinking this on the counter the other day. Some of the staff…aren’t 100% ‘there’ yet. I think Illamasqua because of its extremely strong branding can be intimidating, especially for your average woman who is scared of make up counters anyway (not so much us beauty junkies!). Therefore the staff need to be even more friendly, even more outgoing and welcoming. I would hate the counter staff to turn into pushy-arrogant-MAC-esque types, because the other people I have met/talked to from Illama have been lovely.
When your in Manc, go to the counter at Traff and get Leena to do your make up, she’ll do a great job.
D
p.s. I make a point of being scruffy on posh counters. I bought my Creme De La Mer stuff in flip flops and carrying an Asda resusable bag – one should not judge by the cover, no?
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I have been looking the whole net up and down for reviews and pics of the make-up. Thank you!
Love your look. I am totally into orgnaic stuff and always searching for a new holy grail. I guess I will try some e/s too, and definitely the concealers.
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